Two Most Valuable Voices in Business

The voices in business that reign supreme above all others and provide the most value are the voice of your customers, internal and external, and your own voice.

Regardless of strategy, goals and plans, if you are not listening to your customers, nothing else matters.

The Voice of Your Customer

Voice of the customer (VOC) is the practice of identifying the needs and demands of those that engage with your business by asking them to participate. VOC opens the opportunity for you to learn your customer’s concerns, desires and ideas. You are inviting them into a conversation by providing a platform to engage.

Whether they are buyers, influencers, partners, employees, or the community, together their voices define your brand. They are the real embodiment of your brand’s customer experience.

The “voice of the customer” is a process used to capture the requirements and feedback from the customer in order to provide best-in-class products and services. This process must be proactive and constantly innovative to capture the changing requirements of the customers over time.

Customers are the only reason for a business to exist. It’s who you serve. Your purpose for being in business. Without a transaction or trade, there is no exchange for goods and services, for profit or not. In other words, if the only person “buying” what you are selling is you, then that is not a business. It’s a hobby or a gift.

Listening to your customers, which means all your stakeholders, is fundamental to growth and innovation.

The collective expressions, from complaints to praising testimonials, define your organization. It’s the good, the bad, the passive and the unknown.

  • Do you know what your customers are saying about you?
  • How do employees feel about the place they dedicate a good percentage of their working hours each day?
  • What is top of mind for your partners and investors?
  • Do you all these constituents know what you value?
  • Is everyone empowered and encouraged to use their voices?

It Starts with You

The second most important voice in business is your own.

Communication is two way. We are learning about the silent voices, who are changing the course of business today by no longer staying silent. These voices are setting the standards for which we will operate in the future. These voices are shaping our definitions for what we will tolerate, or not. What we will accept and what we will teach others as to how we will engage and interact. Everyone is watching and listening to those that are using their voice.

Business leaders can not be silent if we expect our customers and employees to use their voice to guide, teach and share.

If you want to be heard, if you want to be respected, you need to speak up. Now. We all need to use our voice. It is our power. It provides us the ability to declare what we will allow and accept as a course of doing business and in our lives. It clarifies what we will tolerate in our communities and how we will be represented. Our voice expresses how we are to be understood and what others can expect from each of us.

As leaders in business, it is our ultimate responsibility to provide a platform, as well as the security, to utilize all voices. It is inherent in transformational and transparent cultures, which enable and empower every single person in the business to have a voice.

Leaders must say, let their voices be heard. We are listening. We will respond. We will engage. We will act. We will not ignore. All of your voices matter.

Back Up and Start Again

We have long spent years in training people to be good listeners. The practice starts early. Remember this, “Shhhh, listen and don’t interrupt!” Yes, we are told to be quiet and listen at very early ages. At home, in school and on the job. When are we taught to speak up? It often comes years after constant “shushing” and being told respect comes from not questioning others and being quiet.

We need to encourage and demand others to use their voices. It starts with every single person using their voice to encourage change and to uphold standards of accountability. Say something. Don’t be silent.

Unlearning the fears related to saying how they feel or how we are harmed requires as much practice and training in business, as does teaching people to be better listeners. Both need to be equal within the corporate culture. Leadership needs to intervene, transform, support and train others to participate in using their voice, as well as be cognitively aware of constant listening. Reinforcing this by having specific programs for listening to customers is one way companies can demonstrate their “best practices” related to voice of the customer (again, internal and external).

Voices Are Out There in Mass

The voice of the customer has been empowered by the strength of social media and our ability to share billions of pieces of content every day. Companies are seeing the voice of their internal customers publicly on display in platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Comparably. Is this how you learn about your internal customer’s concerns? Is this where prospective job candidates find out about your culture?

Our external customers are experiencing the greatest transformation in using their voice. They have individual and collective powers that can promote and destroy business reputations. They don’t even have to be a customer to have a voice. Have you seen the boycotts that come from people that don’t even use the product or participate in the service? The bandwagon is full and these voices carry great weight and influence.

The internet age birthed an expressive outlet that has since grown exponentially by every second. What happens in internet real time gives you just a glimpse of how much content is being voiced across the globe every second. Are you watching? Listening? Are these your customer’s voicing their concerns? It’s business, not personal.

The volume of voices is beyond our grasp at the scale of the internet; however, they can not be beyond our grasp within our organizations. We must put in practice voice of the customer programs and practices in order to succeed in business.

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Do you really know what your customers want and what they don’t want? Remember, it’s not about you or what you think they want.

Ask them. They’ll tell you.

10 Ways to Empower the Voice of Your Customers

  1. Call your customers. Yes, pick up the antiquated phone and call. Don’t text, don’t email, call. Engage with at least 2-3 customers a week. Ask them, how are we doing? What can we do better? Anything you would like me to know? Most CEOs do not call customers until there is red hot issue or they already fired you. That’s too late. Never be afraid to learn from the person that pays your salary – your customer.
  2. Interview buyers. Create buyer personas by interviewing prospects, buyers that use your competition and your customers. Know what they need. Ultimately the products you design and services you offer should be based on the customer needs – if you truly want to grow the bottom-line.
  3. Survey internal and external customers. Ask for feedback from your customer and employees. This is more than a employee or account review. This is a moment in time single questions for asking how they like the company or are they satisfied? Go one step further and add a couple questions for real intelligence gathering. What would they change? What will make you buy more of what we offer in the future? Use standardized feedback programs like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to set benchmarks within your organization. It’s a way to identify the voice of your raving fans and the voice of your distracted influencers. Often you’ll uncover the fastest paths to retaining customers and employees is through feedback you gather in a simple survey. People will share, if you ask.
  4. Feedback forums, innovation labs and focus groups. The best product design engineers will tell you that the most profound changes often came from these groups and forums. It’s the buyers and users. They know what they want and what they don’t want. Test groups and feedback loops give you valuable insights. It also reduces unnecessary cycles of development and money spent making something better when it really didn’t matter. The mechanisms to build-in technology to gather insights and use cases today make it easy to deploy and gather valuable information.
  5. Events and customer programs. Give the opportunity for your customers to share their ideas, best practices and “delight” by sharing advice with your other customers and prospects. This is also very valuable to employees, who can get face-to-face time with customers to learn what excites them as well as the pitfalls that distract and destroy relationships.
  6. Social listening. Utilize every platform available to actively listen to your customers. Watch for opportunities to create engagement, ask for further information. Respond and take action. It demonstrates your commitment to customer care.
  7. Everybody sells. Find a way for everyone in your company to participate in the sales process. Offer ride-along programs with top sales reps. Give team members the opportunity to listen in to customer calls and meetings. Record presentations with your customers for training. Capture comments and evaluations from demos and share these “voices” with the employees. Everyone in the company is a sales person and they should know how to represent the company by hearing the customer voice.
  8. Customer service and feedback loops. Gather input and provide recaps and training on key customer issues to the entire organization. Utilize first-hand experience and real customers to provide real accounts of the experience. Recognize those that are engaging with the customers each day, those that are doing the heavy lifting to ensure your customers are happy.
  9. Measure VOC. Define your program and assign key performance indicators that enable you to constantly know how the company is performing related to brand, customer experience, listening, feedback and service.
  10. Use data. Analyze trends and do data spot checks to ensure the voices are being heard and the information is used to guide the company forward. Start with survey data from NPS or customer satisfaction surveys, analyze retention and buyer frequency, measure engagement, track user experiences and monitor daily customer activities.

Use your voice. Learn from other voices. Empower those around you to use their voice. Show others it is safe and OK to do so. Ensure your customers, internal and external, that you will protect them when they speak up.

All voices have a right to be heard and it is right to listen to all of them. Most importantly, it is right to use your own voice. Speak up. And listen. Both will provide great rewards and opportunities to learn.

Jamie Glass, Founder and CMO of Artful Thinkers, a sales and marketing consulting company.

New York City Loves a Parade and Me Too

NYC ticker tape parade honoring John Glenn on March 1, 1962. Credit: Associated Press.

Three visits in a row to New York City and I found myself smack dab in the middle of a parade.  Two of the parades included an appearance by Victor Cruz, lucky me.  None of my trips to The Big Apple were planned around the parades, it just so happened they found me walking to business meetings and roaming around the City that Never Sleeps during a family get-away.

Beyond Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the well known St. Patrick’s Parade, it is obvious to me that New York City loves a lot of parading! And why not? Costumes, sparkle, horns blaring, screaming, loud music, kids everywhere, dancing and marching bands consuming the streets.  It makes you walk a little faster and your heart beat a little stronger. It makes you smile.

Parades bring thousands, or millions if you are in New York City, outdoors to cheer on traditions, heroes, schools, sports teams, celebrities and even politicians.  Parades make you feel good.

I had no affiliation with any of the parades that took place during my recent visits to New York City.  One was for veterans, another for the NFL Super Bowl XLII champs and the latest was the NYC National Puerto Rican Day Parade.  Regardless the event, I was welcome.  Walking along the route, applauding and waving back to those that marched along, it was me and the parade.  It was revelry, cheering the winners and heroes while kids waved their flags with pride. You can’t help but smile.

Parades are uniting.  Parades are parties where everyone is invited.  You are among celebrants of every demographic.  We need more parades. It is one of the few times that blocking off streets and creating congestion seems like a great idea for the community and city dwellers.

Imagine if we had more parades.  More reasons to gather in the streets and celebrate.  Gathering for more than our heritages, causes and associations.  What if we simply gathered in our streets not in protest but to feel good, cheer each other on and unite as one.  I am sure we could find many reasons to have a parade.

Daniel Webster in Central Park

It seemed only appropriate as my family walked through New York Central Park and the parade noise filtered in through the trees, we happened along a statue of Daniel Webster.  The inscription said, “Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable.”   Yes, liberty to walk free with each other, united together. No discrimination.  Only love and respect.

We need to gather more in celebration and in appreciation.  We need more reasons for kids to cheer, laugh, scream and wave.  New York City loves parades and so should we all.  We need more parades!  I can only hope my next visit to New York City includes another parade.

I love a parade,the tramping of feet,
I love every beat I hear of a drum.
I love a parade, when I hear a band
I just want to stand and cheer as they come.
That rat-a tat-tat, the blare of a horn.
That rat-a tat-tat, a bright uniform;
The sight of a drill will give me a thrill,
I thrill at the skill of everything military.
I love a parade, a handful of vets,
A line of cadets or any brigade,
For I love a parade.  — Arden

Suspicious? My Experience of Being Profiled in Florida

As the fight for justice continues in the Trayvon Martin killing, I am reminded of my personal experience of being profiled.  I share this story knowing that this happened to me only one time in my life, while others experience this every day. My experience didn’t result in a tragedy, but it did enlighten me to what it is like to be targeted as suspicious.

I was in Miami on vacation with friends. We were riding in a rental car, a new Cadillac Seville.  We flew in that day from Arizona. It was about 1AM and we were returning from a night out, where we had a great dinner in South Beach and then stopped at a hoppin’ Miami night club. We were sober but tired from dancing.  Not one of us drink, so it was just a matter of getting back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep before an early morning golf game.

Riding back to our 4-Star hotel, I said to my friend Lloyd, who was driving, “Check out that cop car parked on the other side of the road. He is missing a headlight. Who will pull him over?” Next thing I knew, we were being pulled over.  Stunned, I thought now that’s strange.

Then, I experienced the unthinkable as a 39-year-old white woman – blatant racial profiling.  I was a victim of suspicion by association.  I was riding passenger in a new car with two black men.  My two friends were profiled.  I became witness to freedom, justice and liberty for some, but definitely not all.  Not for my friends that night.

It was a police truck that had a service dog in the back with one working headlight, no less. We immediately stopped. Lloyd unrolled his window. “Yes, officer? What did we do?” Immediately, the officer took a hostile tone. “I don’t have to tell you. Give me your driver licenses?”  Lloyd asked, “Everyone?” The cop said, “Yes!”  Again, Lloyd asks, “Why did you turn around and pull us over?”  The cop said, “I didn’t flip around.  I was following you and I don’t need to tell you anything.”

I thought to myself, why would he lie?  The police officer ignored any other questions and kept looking at our license then walked to the back of our rental car.

There were three people in our car. I was in the front passenger seat. Lloyd was driving and our friend was in the back. I thought it was really strange that we had to all give our licenses. I watched him in my visor mirror as he stood behind our car.  He had our licenses in hand and was smelling each of them.

He returned to the front driver’s window, standing far away.  I asked, “Why are you smelling our licenses?” I knew he was trying to see if it smelled like drugs.  He said his nose itched!  It was then I knew this was more than a traffic stop.

Another officer then arrived at the scene. He was hispanic. He told my friend Lloyd, “Man, you are talking too loud. You are making him nervous.  I’m used to black people talking loud, but you are scaring the other officer.” What did I just hear? Now my heart is racing.

The officer then said, “Please get out of the car.” We all proceeded to get out of the car and then I saw the police dog being unloaded from the back of the truck. I am still somewhat shocked and even more angered now, so I followed the cop and the dog as he opened our trunk of the rental car and walked around the car. I am not sure why he let me follow him.  I really thought he might throw something in the car.  It did kind of seem like a bad cop movie.  I was really frightened.  My two friends stood quietly on the curb.

Two more police officer cars arrived on the scene. I started asking for an explanation. “What is going on?” The officer in charge took us aside and said to us, “You see, there was a gray Cadillac in the county next to ours that was involved in a drive-by shooting. It was a black guy with dreads driving.”

My angered response, “Who has dreads in this car? I am white. Our Cadillac is golden brown. And these two black men are completely bald! So, again why were we pulled over? Why was our car just searched?”

The officer said, “Oh, he didn’t understand the police radio call.  He must of been confused.” Are you kidding me? And then it was over.  We were told we could leave.

I never felt more fearful of my freedom.  My liberty.  I kept thinking my company and my family might not know that I was thrown in jail.  I could just disappear.  Is this how it happens?  I have traveled to many other countries and I felt like I was not in my own — the United States of America.  My heart was racing.

Sadly, I know this takes place all the time.  My friends told me so for years. I hear about it from co-workers, family and close friends that are African American.  They tell me it’s called “DWB – Driving While Black”.  Really!  It has a name!  My black friends would tell stories at work and dinner parties about being pulled over for no reason. They get stopped in the street for walking. They get asked where they are going when walking across a parking lot. Never ticketed, just stopped. They are followed in stores.  People lock doors around them, grab their purses on elevators.  I’ve seen it more than once.  They are suspicious.  One good friend was pulled over because his white godson was in the car with him.  The cop said he was just checking on the boy.  You see, my friend is black.  Sometimes we laugh, but it’s not funny. Not at all.

I left Miami shocked and scared.  And, really mad. This is what my friends experience all the time. No equal rights. Profiling. Assumed guilty of doing something. Suspicious! Until then, I had never thought about those that didn’t get to drive or walk away or boys like Trayvon.  Now I see and hear these real life stories and I’m heartbroken. Ten years later.  More now than ever.

Trayvon Martin Family Photo 2012

In the call for justice for Trayvon, I am saddened about parents who have to give civil rights reminders and lessons on how to behave in public to avoid suspicion.  Pull up your pants!  Take down your hoodie! Or what, you might be shot?

I was a senior executive at a global company. My friends were both in law enforcement. I told Lloyd to show the officer his badge when this was happening to us. He said, “No. I shouldn’t have to show him my badge. This shouldn’t happen in America.”  But it did.

They never knew they were in law enforcement until I turned to them all as we got in the car and said, “By the way, you just pulled over two law enforcement people from Arizona.” They just starred. No apology.  I knew in my heart, we were lucky.  We drove away.

I am sorry for all those that don’t get to drive or walk away. Those that are profiled every day. I am sorry for the suspicion, unnecessary and unfair. I know it happens to our young black men every day, our sons, and it only happened to me once. Maybe if more people experience what I experienced, they would understand the shame, danger and disgrace of stereotyping in this country. The unjust and unfair suspicion.  The anger.

Fight For JusticeThe killing of Trayvon because he was “up to no good” is a calling to all of us.  Let’s live up to what our country was founded on, “liberty and justice for all”.  Stop the suspicion. It’s not right. Stop it. Now. It’s time. And, let’s make sure we see justice.  A trial. That’s a start.

A 21st Century War on Women – Really?

Women Work Women Vote
What next, our right to vote? War on Women is Absurd!

Why? Colleagues, friends and family of both genders and all political persuasions continue to shake our heads in disbelief. The dialogue today is stunning.  Shocking. Are we really going to have a “new” discussion about women’s role in society, reproductive rights and ability to think for ourselves?

It is 2012 and the national conversation has centered on several issues that disrespect, disregard and dismiss women.  It started long before a group of men wanted to discuss the government’s role in paying for birth control.  We have been waging this war for over a century.  Recently, it started surfacing again when several state legislators across the country proposed new rules and regulations that would prevent women from getting access to healthcare. Some have succeeded already (Texas, Virginia) and others are still sadly working to limit access and care. (Arizona).

We’ve seen the debate cycle through various forms, all with a strong movement to limit women’s access to affordable, necessary and reliable healthcare. The subtext of it all that seems to be the most shocking is the derogatory tone of the dialogue.  As a women, it says to me “shut up and sit down”.  Really?  Um, no!

I have the ability and can afford to stand up.  What happens with the poor?  Those that don’t have access to women’s healthcare and family planning?  The new discussions go far beyond just limiting birth control and forcing women to have unnecessary ultrasounds to prevent abortions.  No to mammograms, no to ovarian cancer tests.  Access to preventative care that can SAVE lives.  Where is the logic?  If we limit reproductive healthcare, aren’t we going to force more demand for abortions?  Unwanted pregnancies seem to be the impetus for abortion, so wouldn’t access to affordable family planning help prevent abortions?  Virtually all women (more than 99%) aged 15–44 who have ever had sexual intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method. Vital and Health Statistics, 2010, Series 23, No. 29.

Aside from the discussion of a women’s right to choose, the bigger and broader debate today is how we got back to this discussion 40 years later?  90 years later for equal rights?  What has changed in the country that puts women’s rights at risk – again?

Some may argue that women took for granted that we achieved equality without the need to make it a protected right.  We assumed we are in control of our own health and well-being.  Women’s health should not be up for discussion.  It’s not political.  Saving lives is not political.  If women did “assume” we were in control, was this an assumption of grand illusion?  It appears so.

Women have fought for rights that men have been granted solely by their gender.  Look at the suffrage movement and fight for the right to vote nearly a century ago.  It appears that our rights should not be taken for granted and the fight is not over.  We must press on.  Future generations of women depend on us.  Women need affordable healthcare.  Women need to be in control of their own bodies.  Women need equal pay for equal work.  Women need the same rights as men. It’s not political.

So, in case it needs to be said, we pay taxes.  And, we vote!  The “War on Women” will continue, there is no doubt.  I am reminded of one of my favorite lines from Dirty Dancing, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”  "Nobody puts Baby in a corner"We won’t put aspirin between our knees.  We won’t accept zealot misogynists and bigots telling us to shut up and be happy with our diamonds and dinners.  We won’t go back to being submissive house help.  Our nation can’t afford it economically and women want more and have proven our place in society!

We are women in the board room, women in political office, women CEO’s, working moms, we are women in every profession.  We are scientists, technologists, chefs and journalists.  We are single moms, we are married women, independent women and women with a voice.  We are rich.  We are poor.  We are fighters.  We protect and we give birth.  Every one came from a mother!  We all exist because of a woman.  So, why the war?

Most importantly, we are the women that vote.  We won’t fight this war for long.  You see, we just assumed it was over.  Women are equal.  Maybe it is time to pass the Equal Rights Amendment that was first proposed in 1923.  Maybe then, the war would be over!  Maybe.

Who Professes Our Need for Fairness?

There seems to be a lot of discussion today about fairness.  What does it mean to you? In the dialog, the central theme seems to focus on the perception of what fair means to the individual.  Often through an increased volume, they would like you to agree with their individual point of view of what fairness should mean.

My question is, what is fair for everyone?  Could we agree on something so subjective? Can fairness be universal?  In reaching for words of wisdom on the topic of fairness and how others might think about its application, I found the following:

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. -Eleanor Roosevelt

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only.  This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have. – Abraham Lincoln

Do not twist justice in legal matters by favoring the poor or being partial to the rich and powerful. Always judge people fairly. – Leviticus 19:15

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation… – Bill Clinton

Today’s Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish. – Thurgood Marshall

Win or lose, do it fairly. – Knute Rockne

There are others that would be included on this list of quotes and words that should inspire us.  What is obvious is fairness is not individual.  Fairness comes from the origins of evenhandedness.  And that requires more than one.  The exact definition for fairness:  the state, condition, or quality of being fair, or free from bias or injustice; evenhandedness.

So, as we try to square the conversation on fairness for one and all, maybe we can first focus on what’s fair for you and fair for me.  Starting at two, might help us get to a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, a million and beyond to agree.

“Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense.”… “We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.””The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.”  ― Teddy Roosevelt